Biomimicry and Nasa's cooling technologies are the new frontier in sports rehabilitation

The rear unit controls
the distribution of coolant to the pads, while a liquid-cooled vest
increases blood flow and metabolic rate. Vascular compressors
increase the concentration of lactic acid in muscles

Cody Pickens

This article was taken from the July 2013 issue of Wired
magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before
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In the heart of Silicon Valley, at Nasa Ames Research Park in
Mountain View, California, in an unassuming
one-storey building, Peter Wasowski believes he can
transform fitness regimes, and in the process heal both bodies
and minds.

Combining cooling and compression pads that hold blood in the
upper arms and thighs, his Vasper
(short for vascular performance) fitness system fools the brain
into thinking it has been working flat-out for several hours, when
in fact it has only been exercising for 20 minutes. It sounds like
an infomercial for an abs machine that promises the Earth for
little effort, but Wasowski's team has been getting startling
results -- as have high-profile test subjects such as US Olympic
athlete Erica Ashley McLain (pictured), who used the system to
recover from a serious ankle injury.

The concept is to biomimic the physiology of children. "Watch a
child and you do not see them walk -- they move quickly, they play
and expend a tremendous amount of energy," says Wasowski. "If
you were to look inside their muscles you would see high
concentrations of lactic acid, and the higher the concentration,
the stronger the feedback to the brain requesting growth hormones
and other anabolic hormones, such as DHEA, IGF1 and testosterone,
which rebuild damaged tissues."

Once humans reach puberty, the body, being much bigger, can no
longer concentrate lactic acid at previous levels. At the same
time, metabolic rate slows along with the growth process. "So every
ten years after puberty, we lose 14 percent of what we call
endogenous growth hormone release." According to Wasowski, a
16-year-old athlete is already running at 86 percent of growth
hormone, not 100 -- and this slows recovery. By contrast, a
footballer with an injured knee given six to ten weeks to recover
completely can, supposedly, hit the Vasper machines and be
match-fit in two weeks.

"We concentrate the lactic acid in the quads and biceps, and we
fool the brain into believing that the athlete has just run up a
600-metre-high mountain, and all those muscles are damaged. So the
brain releases massive amounts of endogenous hormones to rebuild
the muscle tissue, and anything else that requires repair gets
repaired, just like it would with a small child."

After an open dislocation of her ankle during a training accident in 2011, The Vasper machine sped up Ashley McLain's recovery

Cody Pickens

Along with this biomimicry, Vasper relies on cooling technology
modelled on Nasa spacesuits to aid healing and performance.
Wasowski explains: "If you were to take a bowl of water and heat it
over a flame, you would see it starting to warm up and oxygen
coming out of it. The same thing happens to the bloodstream. As
your body temperature goes up, the blood temperature increases and
starts releasing blood oxygen. The less of that oxygen you have on
board, the more you start gasping for air. You hit the wall, or the
'O2 max' -- the ability of the body to metabolise oxygen. And
that's when your performance goes south."

Wasowski says that in swimming, as blood has much higher
blood-oxygen volumes because the temperature is cooler, this type
of exercise burns 45 percent more fat as the body is giving
maximum fuel to the muscles and running at a much higher
efficiency.

"We're duplicating that scenario out of the water," he states.
"We have a temperature gradient, between 4.5 degrees celsius and 12
degrees celsius, where we cool the chest, head and feet. So
during a 20-minute session you get the benefit of a
two-and-a-half-hour workout."

These ultra-efficient workout sessions have generated some
compelling improvements in performance: "We had a triathlete here
who did only ten sessions. Then she flew to Hawaii and did an Iron
Man race. After those ten sessions, she took 50 minutes off her
race time -- 50 minutes."

Vasper is also working on a special programme with US Navy Seals
to explore the benefits of the system for troop training. The US
Navy refused to comment, but, particularly in this area, Wasowski
has noted extraordinary mental rewards using the equipment.

"There are tremendous issues with post-traumatic stress syndrome
in the military. And this technology works very well to help those
soldiers regain their mental balance, because hormonal balance has
a very close relationship to mental balance. We've seen amazing
turnarounds with people close to being suicidal who were fine after
doing this therapy."

Wasowski expects to have data published on Vasper this year from
studies conducted by the Navy Seals, the University of Hawaii and
an additional base setting up next month at University of
California, San Francisco. For now, he offers himself as further
evidence of Vasper's efficacy, having used it to rid himself of
arthritic pain in both ankles. He now takes no arthritis medication
whatsoever.

"People say, 'This must be a dream come true.' But it's beyond a
dream."